


alternating current

by pugglemuggle



Series: KageHina Valentine's Collection - 2018 [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, 5+1 Things, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Hand & Finger Kink, Hands, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, kind of?, pure boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 15:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13550505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pugglemuggle/pseuds/pugglemuggle
Summary: Hinata isn’t sure when he started noticing Kageyama’s hands.(Or, five times they want to hold hands, and one time they do.)





	alternating current

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the first day of my fifth annual 14 Days of Valentine's Challenge. The prompt of the day was "Hand-Holding". Enjoy!
> 
> (PS: POV alternates at section breaks.)

1.

Hinata isn’t sure when he started noticing Kageyama’s hands.

He’s watched Kageyama set so many times that he sometimes hears the sound of it in his sleep, but he’s almost always watching the ball—not Kageyama. Or at least, he used to always watch the ball. Today he catches himself watching Kageyama— _really_ watching him. He has big hands, long fingers. Probably why he’s so good at setting, Hinata thinks. Though Kageyama’s pretty much good at everything volleyball-related, so maybe he’d still be good at setting even if he had smaller hands like Hinata’s.

“Oi.”

He jumps, dropping his volleyball. Kageyama is glaring at him.

“What?” he asks, trying to act like he hadn’t just been staring. Kageyama’s brow furrows deeper.

“...You should just ask.”

“Ask what?”

“Ask for a toss if you want a toss. Don’t just stare at me, stupid.”

“Oh,” Hinata says. He wants to argue, because Kageyama is _wrong_ , he _wasn’t_ staring to try to get him to toss to him—but that would involve having to explain what he _was_ staring at, and that would be... weird. Embarrassing. It probably wasn’t normal to stare at people’s hands, was it?

“C’mon,” Kageyama says impatiently. “I’ll toss to you.”

It doesn’t really matter, Hinata decides. If Kageyama is agreeing to toss for him, then Hinata’s willing to let Kageyama think he was right—even if he wasn’t. He abandons the ball he dropped and jogs towards Kageyama. “Let’s practice the quick,” he says, positioning himself further down the net. “We should get it perfect for the game this week.”

And this, at least, is normal. Kageyama nods. Hinata jumps, Kageyama tosses, and the ball connects with his palm like an electric shock, like the zap of a charged wire from Kageyama’s hands to his. His skin is left feeling hot and tingly from the brief moment of contact. When he looks up and meets Kageyama’s eyes, he knows he feels it, too.

 

2.

Hinata looks nervous.

Kageyama doesn’t usually notice these things, but with Hinata it’s... _easy_. They’ve known each other for so long, and Hinata is terrible at hiding anything. All his feelings are completely transparent, as if they’re written on his forehead—like now. Hinata’s brow is furrowed, and his eyes are wide and glassy. It’s… uncomfortable. Seeing Hinata like this makes him frustrated for reasons Kageyama can’t put into words.

The game starts in just a few minutes. Hinata needs to calm down.

“Hinata!” he calls. Hinata jolts, and that isn’t what he meant to happen. He frowns. Walks closer.

Hinata tenses even more, eyes darting around like a caged animal. “O-oi, Kageyama....”

“Shut up,” Kageyama says, but that’s not—that’s not what he wanted to say, so he sighs and tries again. “Just... be quiet. It’s fine.”

And now Hinata’s... confused, he thinks. Anxious, but now confused too, and _why is this so difficult?_

He grabs Hinata’s hand.

Well, not quite. He’s not thinking when he does it, and it’s maybe inaccurate to say he grabs his hand—he grabs his wrist, really. He presses his thumb to the jittery pulse at the stem of Hinata’s palm and feels his rapid-fire heartbeat hammering just below the skin. At first, Hinata tries to pull away, but Kageyama holds him tight and after a few seconds, Hinata relaxes. Kageyama can feel the steady beat of his own heart in his fingertips. It mingles with Hinata’s, until Hinata’s heartbeat slows, and he’s not sure whose is whose anymore.

When he looks up, Hinata is staring at him, wide-eyed, with an expression Kageyama doesn’t recognize. He frowns. So much for Hinata being easy to read.

“Don’t be nervous,” Kageyama insists. “We’re going to win.”

Hinata says nothing—just nods.

 

3.

They win.

The ball slams into the floor at the far side of the gym with a beautiful crack of finality, and with that, the match is over. Karasuno has won.

As soon as Hinata feels gravity take hold of him again, his shoes slamming back onto the gym floor, he turns. Kageyama is already there. He’s _smiling_.

Hinata’s smiling too.

Kageyama raises his hand, like a high-five, and Hinata wastes no time. He jumps, smacks his hand against Kageyama’s as hard as he can, and it hurts a little but it’s good. It’s the same feeling as hitting Kageyama’s toss just a few seconds earlier, his hand red and prickling, and he wants—

He wants—

Someone suddenly slams into his side, and he struggles to keep his balance as Tanaka almost bowls him over with a loud, raucous, “FUCK YEAH!” Hinata is quickly swept up in the euphoria of it all, the loud, wild, reckless celebration. He doesn’t think about Kageyama or his hands again until they’re heading for the locker room to change and get back on the bus.

“I told you,” Kageyama says to him.

“What?”

“I told you we’d win,” Kageyama says again. “Don’t be nervous next time.”

Hinata frowns. “I can’t just turn it on and off.”

“Why not?”

“That’s—that’s not how it works!”

Kageyama glowers at the floor, like this fact is particularly inconvenient. “Then...” He glances at Hinata. “I’ll just help you calm down again.”

The memory of Kageyama’s hand before the match flicks back into focus—his fingers around Hinata’s wrist, his thumb pressed against his pulse, the warmth of his palm against Hinata’s clammy skin. Hinata swallows.

“Okay,” he says.

Kageyama nods, like he’s just solved a problem, and goes to change.

Hinata feels a new kind of nervousness.

 

4.

The bus ride back is quiet. Kageyama shares a seat with Hinata, as usual, and they both spend half the ride sleeping—also as usual. Except today, Kageyama also spends a good portion of the trip wanting to touch Hinata’s hands.

He can’t seem to stop thinking about that last spike, replaying it over and over again in his head. He can remember watching as if in slow motion as Hinata’s splayed hand connected with the ball. He was so high up, and the gym lights overhead backlit Hinata’s hair, his arm, his fingers, until he looked like some kind of deity, outlined in a fiery corona. Kageyama felt the hair on his arms stand up like a static shock and for a moment, he stopped breathing.

But then the ball smacked into the floor and Karasuno got the final point and they _won_ and they were slamming their hands together and he forgot, for a while, that anything had happened at all.

But now, in the relative peace of the bus, he remembers. And Hinata’s hand is right _there_.

He sets his hand flat on the seat next to Hinata’s, the edge of his little finger just brushing Hinata’s.

A few minutes later, Hinata slumps away from the window and onto Kageyama’s shoulder. He doesn’t shove him off. Instead, he moves his hand just a couple inches further and lets his pinky and Hinata’s overlap, and that, he tells himself, should be more than enough.

 

5.

“Isn’t this near where that tree got struck by lightning?”

“What tree?”

Hinata huffs. “You know. _The_ _tree_. The one that was on the cover of the newspaper this morning.”

“I don’t read the newspaper,” Kageyama says.

They’re walking home from practice a few days after the game. Hinata still hasn’t stopped feeling weird about Kageyama’s hands. Every time he looks at them, he remembers what Kageyama said to him after the game, and thinking about that makes him sweat.

“You don’t have to read the newspaper to see the picture on the front,” Hinata responds.

“Well, I didn’t look at the picture.”

“You should have. It was really cool,” Hinata insists. “The tree was split in half, like _shooooom_ , right down the middle!” He makes a hand gesture. “And there’s these cracks all along the side of the tree, like stripes.”

Kageyama just gives him a blank look. Hinata pouts.

“We’re going to see it right now,” he tells Kageyama. Then he plants his hand firmly on his bike’s handlebars, snatches Kageyama’s wrist, and races forward. It takes him a whole block to realize that he’s basically holding Kageyama’s hand.

He doesn’t let go.

The tree is only three blocks off of their usual route, and it’s even more impressive in person than it was in the picture. The trunk is sheared in two straight down the middle, the two halves peeled apart as if by giant’s hands. A set of parallel diagonal lines twist around the parts of the trunks that remain, and they remind Hinata of claw marks, almost, or scars. There are splinters littering the lawn of the unfortunate homeowner whose property the tree happened to stand on. Some of the larger branches Hinata remembers from the picture have been removed, but the littler ones still remain. Hinata kicks one with his shoe.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” he says, glancing over at Kageyama. Kageyama’s eyes are wide, staring at the tree with an expression Hinata can only interpret as awe.

“It’s amazing,” Kageyama admits.

Hinata flushes, looks back at the tree, and grips Kageyama’s wrist a little tighter.

 

+1

It’s Friday when Kageyama finally makes his decision.

He invites Hinata to practice with him alone before regular morning practice. The sun is only just beginning to peek up over the mountains as he sits and waits for Hinata on the steps to the gym, his hands shoved in his jacket pocket. It’s cold. His breath fogs the air in front of him when he exhales.

Hinata is five minutes late when he finally appears, panting and leading his bike to the bike rack. “You were supposed to be here by now,” Kageyama says in lieu of a greeting.

“Sorry, Kageyama,” Hinata grins. His smile is too bright for this early in the morning, and Kageyama has to look away.

The _click_ of the bike lock tells Kageyama that Hinata’s finished putting his bike away. Kageyama squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath. He has to do it now. He told himself he would. He made a decision.

Just as Hinata’s about to step past him to open the gym door, Kageyama reaches up and grabs his arm. Hinata looks down, brow furrowing.

“What?”

“Just...” Kageyama looks at his feet, “stay here a minute.”

_“Why?”_

“I need to... tell you something.”

“...But it’s cold,” Hinata frowns, but something in Kageyama’s tone must convince him that this is serious enough for him to stop protesting. He sits down next to Kageyama on the steps, and Kageyama releases his arm.

They wait in silence for over a minute. Hinata starts twirling his thumbs. Kageyama gets lost watching his fingers for a few moments, then shakes himself back into reality and blurts, “Give me your hand.”

Hinata is staring at him—he can feel it. Nevertheless, he does as asked, extending his hand slowly, palm up. An invitation.

Kageyama takes it.

Their fingers don’t lace perfectly, Hinata’s smaller hand slightly awkward under Kageyama’s larger one, but it’s okay. It’s _good_. The warmth of Hinata’s palm against his own is enough to make him forget about the cold air and the hard steps and blood pounding in his ears. It’s like there’s a current running from Hinata’s hand to his, every nerve hot and tingling. He never wants to let go.

“I like you,” Hinata says.

It takes Kageyama a moment to process that.

“What?” he asks, staring straight at Hinata’s reddening face. Hinata meets his gaze head-on, wide-eyed and biting his bottom lip.

“I like you,” Hinata repeats. “I only just realized it, but... I do.”

“Oh.” Kageyama pauses, collecting his thoughts. “Me too.”

“What?” Now it’s Hinata’s turn to look surprised.

“I like you too, idiot,” Kageyama says. “That’s what I needed to tell you. That's why we're sitting out here.”

“Oh.”

And then Hinata’s grinning again, that wide, too-bright smile that Kageyama swears is burned into the backs of his eyelids. Kageyama can’t help it—he’s smiling too.

“We’re still going to practice, right?” Hinata says. “You didn’t just ask me here to confess?”

“Of course not,” Kageyama says. He gets to his feet and pulls Kageyama up with him, their fingers still locked together. “C’mon. Let’s go inside.”

He’ll have to let go soon if they want to practice, he knows. But they’ll still be connected, in a way. Volleyball connects them more than hand-holding ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> Subscribe to the collection for more fics like this one! I'll be writing one for each of the 14 days leading up to Valentine's Day.


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